Sat-ND, 14.06.98

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BUSINESS

Loral
Skynet in alliance with EchoStar

Loral Skynet and EchoStar
Satellite Corp have agreed in principle to form a strategic alliance
to offer a host of new digital-based services to cable operators,
programmers, and direct-to-home (DTH) consumers, the companies said
in a statement.

This alliance will create the only DVB (digital video broadcast)
direct-to-home platform in the United States that allows specialised
and mainstream programming to be packaged separately, yet received in
the same set-top box and accessible through a single smart card and
electronic programme guide.

Loral Skynet and EchoStar will combine portions of their space
assets, ground networks, and digital distribution resources to launch
an end-to-end transmission and distribution service for specialty
programming that can be received by both DTH consumers and cable
operators throughout the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii,
and the Caribbean.

In conjunction with the alliance, Loral Skynet will create a new
transmission and distribution service that will combine its Telstar
fleet space segment, compression, encoding, uplinking, format
conversion and multiplexing to enable specialty programmers--such as
international channels, specialised channels, distance learning
services and business television--to cost-effectively distribute
their programming to targeted audiences throughout the United States,
including Alaska and Hawaii, and the Caribbean.

EchoStar will provide uplinking and distribution services from its
facilities in Cheyenne, Wyo., as well as order processing, set-top
box authorisation, and billing. In addition, EchoStar will launch a
new DTH service package that will enable consumers who subscribe to
specialty programming to receive more than 20 of the most popular
cable networks and several premium movie services.

Loral Skynet's transmission and distribution service package and
EchoStar's DTH service are slated to commence in September 1998 on
Loral Skynet's Telstar 5 satellite at 97 degrees West.

Consumers in the United States will use EchoStar's next generation
set-top box, a single smart card and a 90-cm dish. The DTH service
will also be available to Caribbean residents who currently lack
small dish access to satellite delivered multi-channel digital
programming.

Loral Skynet and EchoStar have agreed that in the future, the DTH
service and specialty programming customers in the United States will
be able to subscribe to EchoStar's Dish Network using an additional
antenna with the same receiver and smart card.

Russian rocket engine to give
U.S. spy satellite a lift

A Lockheed Martin Atlas IIIA
rocket has been selected by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office
(NRO) to launch a classified payload from Cape Canaveral Air Station.
The launch date will be selected based on the NRO's operational
requirements. The rocket will be equipped with a Russian RD-180
engine.

In a commercial bidding process open to U.S. launch services
providers, the NRO selected the Atlas IIIA in what Lockheed in a
press release said was the first direct competition between the Atlas
IIIA and Boeing's new Delta III.

The first launch of the Atlas IIIA is planned for early 1999. The
first Atlas IIIA began final assembly in mid-March at Astronautics'
facilities.

The defining characteristic of Atlas III vehicles is the use of
the Russian RD-180 engine to power the Atlas booster. Atlas IIIA also
uses a single Pratt & Whitney RL-10A engine to power the Centaur
upper stage and is capable of lifting payloads weighing up to 4,174
kg to geostationary transfer orbit.

The RD-180 is currently undergoing extensive testing at NPO
Energomash facilities in Khimky, Russia, where nine engines have been
successfully test fired for a total of more than 9,000 seconds. This
is the equivalent of more than 48 Atlas IIIA flights when compared to
the 186 seconds the engine would operate during a typical Atlas
mission.

Later this month, a prototype Atlas III booster stage, including
an RD-180 engine, will be fired on a test stand at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala. This will be the first Russian-built
rocket engine to be test fired at a U.S. government facility.

LAW
& ORDER

Step-by-step
monopoly

The EU commission recently
banned a deal that would have created a digital TV monopoly in
Germany. The companies involved, Bertelsmann and Kirch Group, still
keep on trying. Taking over Germany's only pay-TV channel, Premiere
as planned would have more or less the same effect, critics argue.

Bertelsmann has told the Federal Cartel Office, the country's
competition watchdog, that it plans to raise its stake in Premiere to
50 percent by buying 12.5 percent currently held by Canal Plus. The
French pay-TV giant intends to sell its 37.5-percent stake in the
channel, which will expand its digital bouquet soon.

Bavarian media tycoon Kirch is expected to take over the remaining
25 percent of Canal Plus' stake. Premiere will use Kirch's d-box for
Premiere's new digital channels. Kirch had ordered a million of those
set-top boxes from Nokia of Finland. Reportedly, just 250,000 were
sold, probably more than half of them even without a subscription for
Kirch's ailing digital service DF1.

Speaking of which, DF1 will be discontinued, or rather: it will
more or less become a part of Premiere's digital service. It doesn't
really matter if the service will be offered under the same brand
name, it is even of no relevance whether the channels will keep their
respective names. What's important is that Kirch will supply Premiere
with pay-TV and PPV film rights.

However, this deal is subject to regulatory approval, too. The
German cartel office, which has four months to make a decision, has
meanwhile also contacted the EU commission. Critics say that the new
plans of Bertelsmann and Kirch were in effect very similar to those
just banned by Brussels.

"Any future developments regarding Kirch, Bertelsmann and the
shareholdings in Premiere will be examined in the light of this ban,"
a spokesman for the German cartel office was quoted as saying. "There
can be no question of Kirch and Bertelsmann installing step by step a
structure similar to the banned project," he added.

The
most boring Washington scandal ever

Who would've expected that?
Currently, it's scandal time in Washington again, but no women are
involved whatsoever. Instead, it's all about... satellites! While the
New York Times reported that China's military has been using
U.S.-made satellites, the Washington Post claimed that the
controversial deals have generated valuable information for U.S.
analysts monitoring China's missile program.

It's a bit boring, actually. Not much is happening over there
except for papers, politicians and experts accusing or excusing each
other. Here's an example. The background to all this is that the U.S.
government has banned the sale of any military equipment to China
after Chinese troops killed hundreds as they broke up pro-democracy
protests at Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that China's military has
been using U.S.-made satellites sold to civilian companies, namely
Asia-Pacific Telecommunications (APT) of Hong Kong. The paper claimed
the public company was partly owned by Costind, the scientific and
research arm of the Chinese Army, which also leased transponder
capacity on one of APT's Apstar satellites.

The China army's newspaper openly hailed the advances brought by
the satellites, noting that officers "cried themselves hoarse"
or ran long distances to post offices using the old system, the Times
said.

No, it's just the other way round, the Washington Post said the
same day, Saturday. U.S. intelligence had received "unpublicized
benefits" from the launch of commercial satellites aboard
Chinese rockets and from the sale of U.S. communication satellites to
China.

"We know the frequencies, the orbits and the way to jam it if
we ever went to war," one U.S. source is quoted as saying. The
Post said the U.S. military actually wants the Chinese military to
use US-made communication satellites because Washington would be more
likely to decode Beijing's military messages [a rather strange
claim.]

The Post said the military also have gained insights into the
Chinese missile programme by monitoring lift-offs of Chinese rockets
putting U.S. satellites into orbit.

ONLINE

Wildfires
Web site

In an effort to provide
up-to-date information about current fire situations around the globe
to the public and scientific communities, NASA unveiled a new Web
site that provides an up-to-date synopsis of current information
about fires and their effect on global climate change.

This web site features revealing animation depicting wildfires
across the globe, NASA said in a statement. It draws upon satellite
resources from several U.S. agencies and international partners and
is intended to serve the needs of the scientific community and the
general public.